"We Can't Talk to Each Other Anymore"

My remarks from this last Shabbat - Friday, August 31, 2012

Only my closest friends know I did this.  You’ll never guess where I was. You may have read about this event or even seen clips  of it on TV, but let me describe the scene to you, from my first-hand account: The less-than-desirable weather conditions didn’t hinder any of the fanfare.  People were everywhere – swarming, in their seats, up in the stands, inside and outside the venue staring at huge screens. They had cameras, they were recording everything on the video feature of their phones and uploading to YouTube, they were live-tweeting and posting to Facebook.  I noticed that everyone seemed to look the same, clad in shirts and hats emblazoned with “the team’s” name, and they were waving these banners and signs, hand written or painted with their own “We love so-and-so” depending on whose big “play” was coming up next.  There was press everywhere too.  Each time a new person made their way into view, the crowd went wild, shouting and cheering in a growing wave of euphoria. 

As one who doesn’t hold the same affection for this “team”, I have to say I felt really out of place. It’s hard to silence me, I am not usually easily intimidated, but the power of those united around me and seemingly against me, I think they could tell I wasn’t a real “fan”, made me feel small and inadequate. When the people in front of me heard me make a dissenting remark under my breath, they turned around and gave me a nasty look.  I was frightened that if I spoke up, they might go on the attack, throw their popcorn at me, or hit my head with one of their poster-board signs.

I imagine given what we all know has been going on, you know what I’m talking about.

That’s right, preseason football and my experience at New England Patriots Practice! 

On our recent trip out east, I had the “opportunity” to go with my husband and our kids to watch the New England Patriots practice.  This was, as I was told by my husband, my brother-in-law, all our Boston family and friends, even my kids (who have clearly been brainwashed) a really big deal. So we are sitting there, in the stands on the hottest day imaginable.  My family at my side camouflaged and swimming along with the massive crowd of Tom Brady navy jerseys, cheering, waving these really weird signs, and most notably praising anything Patriots and talking a whole lot of smack, really mean smack, about anyone and everyone else.

Which I really didn’t get since it is was only a practice – not even a preseason scrimmage.  Now, personal disclosure – I am not into watching sports.  But I get I am in the minority, I get that people find meaning and community in the teams they align with, and probably, these teams serve as important psycho-social receptacles for many people’s feelings of frustration, anger, pride, and hubris that would otherwise manifest themselves in more inappropriate and even troublesome ways in society.

And amidst this brewing, bubbling cauldron of “Brady’s gonna kick so-and-so’s you know what this year,” “so and so’s an dummy” signage, and then the subsequent hi-fives, fist and chest bumps, yes chest bumps, all I could think of was how this was just a small picture of the larger “if you aren’t with us, you are against us” world we all live in now, and I started to think about how we can’t talk to each other anymore on the things about which we disagree.

Some of this is a result of modern day social media.  Now, more than ever, we can self-select exactly which viewpoints we want to be exposed to and which we want to block out, so that we might not ever have to encounter the “other side.”  This can give us the false illusion that everyone must hold the same “likes” as we do.  And if they don’t, clearly, they are wrong.  

When we do this, something interesting happens: in lifting up the validity and absolute right of our own view, we connect to it deeply and with passion.  We feel it reflective of us, a part of us, and as such we want to defend it, and ourselves, against anything that might threaten it. Essentially, we develop an intimate, humanized relationship with our view and those who hold it, so we cannot separate our view from who we are as a person.  But then, as a result, we completely dehumanize the opposition.  We allow ourselves to forget that the “other” side is a view held by another person – our neighbor, family member, community member, what have you.  We see every conversation not as opportunity to learn and grow through hearing and learning about a different perspective, and instead, we see the other side, the view and the person connected, as a threat – an enemy, that rival team that, whether better than us or not, we will rip to bits so that our side, or really we feel that much stronger, that much more powerful, without a moment’s thought about the damage we might leave in our wake. 

And when we either become so wedded to our own views that we can no longer even stand in the presence of the other with a different view, we have a real problem.  The truth is the likelihood of a conversation where disagreement occurs while nurtured in mutual respect is slim to none these days.  As Arnie Eisen recently wrote: we “…so fear to articulate serious arguments.  We seem afraid that critique of a person’s point of view will be taken as critique of the person and cause insult. And fearing barbs, we restrict ourselves to pleasantries.  Minds grow dull on a heavy dose of…what Eisen calls: ”the pleasure of agreement.””[i]  And with that, Eisen brings up the other real draw back to a world in which I stick to my team and you stick to yours and never the two shall meet – real, anesthetizing boredom and stagnation.

While this may very well be the way of our world today, it is not, nor has it ever been the Jewish way.  We Jews wrote the book on how to argue – literally. The entire code of Jewish Law on which all modern Jewish practice is based – the Talmud – is nothing more than a cataloguing of arguments between Jews.  But these weren’t disagreements that escalated into name-calling, threats, and violence.  These disagreements were understood as the basis for holy Jewish living and believe it or not, a pluralistic Jewish practice for nearly the last 2000 years.

Take this story for example: The Talmud describes that two opposing schools of thought – Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel (think Michigan and Ohio State) were in a dispute over a certain halacha – or Jewish law - for 3 years, each proclaiming that the law sided with their respective view.  All of a sudden, a disembodied, Divine Voice announces, “Both of you are right, but the halachah goes with Beit Hillel.”  Since both were right, what was it that entitled Beit Hillel to have the halachah fixed with their rulings? The Talmud gives this reasoning: Because they were kind and modest, they studied their own rulings and those of BS, and were even so humble as to mention the actions of Beit Shammai before their own.”[ii] 

I wonder if we might see a greater willingness to engage in discourse and in fact a return of civility to discourse if we all followed those Talmud guidelines for disagreement.  Because the truth is, disagreement is a cherished part of what it means to be in community, to be a part of a growing and evolving world that moves toward improvement.  Disagreement is the space from which choices and ultimately progress comes. 

 

As you know, tonight marks the 13^th day in the month of Elul: the Jewish month preceding the High Holy Days; a time of renewal and reflection.  The death of civil discourse, the pervasive presence of fear, lack of trust, and an odd distortion of accepted group-think that now seems to govern so much of the ways of our world – all of these must necessarily be a part of our work toward teshuvah - as individuals and a community.  We can start this process by practicing the three concepts raised up for us in the Talmud in each conversation we have where we disagree:

1)   Be kind and modest.

2)   Listen to the opinions of others as well as your own.

3)   Come to understand and give respect to the other by stating their view before your own.

Three simple tasks football fans, politicians, and every one of us can easily apply to start to make a real difference in how we engage with each other.

In his master work “I and Thou”, the famous 20th century Theologian Martin Buber professed, “All real living is meeting” – meaning that the highest form of existence is when we sit and really see each other, eye to eye, and hear each other, ear to ear, look at each other, not me against your idea, or you against mine, but person to person, heart to heart, soul to soul.  If we do that, Holiness will dwell within us, God will abide among us. 
Shabbat Shalom

---

[i] Sermon “On Civility” March 15, 2012

[ii] Eruvin 13b

On Faith, Trust, and Kindergarten

Thank you to Rabbi Phyllis Sommer (aka @imabima) for her wonderful #blogElul endeavor. This combines themes of days 5 and 6 – trust and faith - since to me, they are, if not one and the same, integrally and inexorably tied together.

Tomorrow, my oldest child begins Kindergarten, and I’m not sure who’s more nervous. My sweet, sensitive, 95-year-old-Jewish-man-trapped–in-the-body-of-5-year-old son has expressed numerous concerns, ranging from: “What if I don’t make friends?” to “Where will the bathrooms be?”   I tell him not to worry, that it won’t be so different from his cherished preschool in my synagogue (where everyone knows him, where is he most comfortable outside of our home) - but I know it will be completely new and very different.  He will not have the security blanket of teachers and staff who’ve known him since he was born, his small group of friends (none of whom will be in his kindergarten) or having me just down the hall in my office.  And this is where my anxieties kick in: What if he really doesn’t make friends?!  What if he really can’t find the bathroom?!

(My son on his first day of preschool)

I know, I know.  Every yoga class I've taken to every Wendy Mogel book or article I've  taught in a parenting group instructs what I know I need to do: Take a deep breath, and as I exhale, let it all go: trust that he will make friends and find the bathroom, have faith that if he doesn't, he'll figure out solutions for himself and as a result, grow in a way that nurtures his self-confidence and faith.  And if the real and best desire is for my son to grow and mature with self-sufficiency and grace, then as I exhale, I will have to unclench my hand from his and then let him go through that Kindergarten classroom door without me. 

This is, of course, not just about Kindergarten, and I hope it is not an issue limited only to me; it is yet another reminder that the sense of control to which many of us cling so tightly is nothing more than an illusion, perhaps even an idol, a false-god that ultimately only obstructs the real trust and faith we need to cultivate.

There are a lot of words for trust and faith in Hebrew, but the one I like best is emunah.  The root for emunah is AMN and a form of it (he'emin) is used in Torah to describe Avram's faith and trust in God1 - a faith that culminates in a lengthy covenant statement.  Of note is that the context of the covenant describes the promise of a great nation, but also includes the struggles that the people will go through - their significant oppression - and then their ultimate return. 

When we trust and believe, we are not trusting and believing that everything will go according to our preconceived plan or vision; rather, we are trusting and believing that regardless of what happens, we will be able to navigate whatever path we tread; that the bumps and potholes on the road might have the same or even a greater potential for holiness than the smooth paths along our way.

The famous Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch interpreted the word amen (derived from the same AMN root) in a most meaningful way. More than "so may it be," Hirsch said: “Amen does not refer to the contents of the pronouncement, but to the person.”  Really amen means "So may I be."2

Tonight, while putting my son to bed, we sang Shema and V'ahavta and then, given the onset of this new occasion, we sang Shehechiyanu. As we finished the word "ha'zeh,"  I closed my eyes and took that deep breath.  I prayed for the trust and faith to embrace this transition in our family and my son's life, and for the insight to walk along this next pathway with presence but trust and faith in my son’s strength as well.  "So may I be," and together we sang "amen."

---

1 Breishit 15:6

 2 Thanks to Rabbi David Stern in Dallas for first sharing Hirsch’s interpretation of amen.

Spiritual Cardiac Conditions?

(originally written for and published by Rabbis for Human Rights North America)

Do Not Harden Your Heart: A D'Var Torah for Parshat Re'eh

“v’al cheit shechatanu lifanecha b’imutz halev –

For the sin we have sinned against You through hardness of heart."

On Yom Kippur, the sin of hardening our hearts appears second in the long list of confessional phrases we intone over and over. This sin also shows up in this week's Torah portion, Re'eh, which marks the beginning of Elul—the Hebrew month of reflection preceding the High Holy Days. But unlike the Vidui liturgy, which offers no context or details of this spiritual cardiac condition, Re'eh ties this hardened internal state to our external relationships with those less powerful than ourselves: the poor and needy.

In the sixth aliyah of Re'eh, Devarim 15:7-8, the Torah instructs:

"...do not harden your heart,

nor shut your hand from your poor brother;

but you shall surely open your hand wide to him,

and shall surely lend him sufficient for his need..."

The structure of the text here is noteworthy, offering two negative and two positive commands, each seemingly related to the other through chiastic form (ABBA). The second negative command not to close our hand to the poor is paralleled by the words that immediately follow, demanding that we open our hand wide. The combination of these oppositional images emphasizes that when we respond to the poor with our hands—in other words, with physical actions—we must give willingly and generously; our hands must be open.

But the first negative command and the final positive command in this structure are not, at first glance, a fitting pair. The negative command not to harden our heart relates to the realms of feeling and emotion, leading us to anticipate that the positive command counterpart would do the same. However, providing someone with what they need—the subject of the positive command—relates to our physical actions, and thus we have an apparent mismatch.

Maimonides' interpretation of the phrase from the final positive command at issue—"sufficient for his need"—helps us makes this apparent mismatch a match. He comments: "If [the poor person] has no clothing, he should be provided clothing; if he has no house furniture, it should be procured for him.... Even if an impoverished person is used to riding while a servant is running in front of him, a riding horse should be procured for him and a servant to run in front."1 The plain reading of Maimonides' remarks is that we are to go to whatever lengths necessary to provide for the particular needs of each poor person. Our physical actions should not be limited to a "one-size-fits-all" solution. But Maimonides' approach goes further still: Maimonides is pushing us to go beyond our often dehumanized view of "the poor" as a broad category and instead to see each individual as a real person with unique and varying needs. In this way, Maimonides enables us to see how the prohibition against hardening one's heart and the positive command to provide everyone with what is sufficient for their needs complement each other: they are a combined call for a humanized awareness, free of desensitization and stereotyping, underlying any action we take to help those in need.

When Shabbat Parshat Re'eh concludes, we will have 40 days until Yom Kippur. Perhaps, if we take up Re'eh's charge to open our hearts and hands to those around us in need, we will both deepen our own teshuvah process of returning to the best of who we can be, and create a more sustainable and equalized existence for those around us as well.

“u’teshuvah, u’tefilah, u’tzedakah maavirin et roah hagzerah –

but repentance, prayer, and tzedakah temper judgment's severe decree."

1 Mishnah Torah, MatanotAniyim 7:3

On "Sunday Styles," Privatized Spirituality, and Revolutions

When my Sunday New York Times arrives each week,  I read "Sunday Styles"  first.  In part because it allows me to ease in to the heavier content of the other sections, but also because I love to see if I know any of the rabbis or cantors who might be officiating at the listed weddings!  Of late, more and more, instead of reading about weddings officiated by clergy, I read: "a dear friend of the bride/groom was ordained as a universal life minister especially for the couple's nuptuals" or something like that.  Many will say that this reflects only interfaith couples reacting to their rejection by synagogues and clergy who won't officiate, but a closer look reveals both exogamous and endogamous couples seeking this option.   Looking to add personal meaning and intimacy to their weddings, couples seek out the people who know them best to honor them in this most special way on their most special day.  It's not that they are outright rejecting the Jewish part of their lives, as often,  Jewish traditions are "acknowledged" in some way, perhaps in the form of a groom stepping on a glass or someone's relative leading haMotzi before the dinner is served.   But by and large, those are the only Jewish notes in an otherwise completely customized and privatized symphony commissioned to reflect the couple's individualized and particular desires and love, because at the end of the day, personalized customization is what's most important. 

And it isn't just weddings either.  The truth is, any Jewish lifecycle moment is up for customization these days.  The "privatized" route of arranging for private venues for Baby Namimgs and Britei Mila, Bnai Mitzvah, weddings, and even Shiva observances, where these Jewish rituals are "observed" in the same ways as the weddings I mentioned earlier.  Just last month, The Jewish Times published an article on the Reform movement's new effort to "revolutionize" Bnai Mitzvah.  The author cited a recent example from a well-known Reform synagogue in Los Angeles, describing how, instead of chanting Haftara, a Bar Mitzvah spoke about "his recent ride alone on a city bus... across Los Angeles on a Friday at rush hour “to see my city from a different perspective.”**   Noting the understanding that a ritual marking a transition out of childhood should reflect the skills required to become a Jewish adult in the community, the synagogue's senior rabbi remarked, "It was a reframing of the bar mitzvah ceremony.” 

And I get it.  I can see how a Bar Mitzvah  would find more "meaning" from a bus ride than from learning Haftara trope.  I see how a custom candy buffet with the child's initials imprinted on each pink or blue sugar coated chocolate proves more memorable for people than welcoming a child into the Jewish covenant with a Hebrew name and hopes in Hebrew of Torah, Chuppah, and Gimilut Chasidim.  The world we live in, the world I live in, is one where, for any number of sociological, historical, and phsychological  reasons, we are all desperate for real, personal acknowledgement and intimiate connections -and many believe those cannot be achieved through Jewish cerermonies now perceived as too "one-size-fits-all."

But here's what I wonder: do these customized "meaningful" observances actually provide the meaning and connection that so many seek? I think that people think they do, but I also believe that they are missing an entirely different, deeper type of meaning and connection that can only come when we tap into that which is larger and more enduring than ourselves.  Jewish markings along the lifecycle serve the explicit purpose of putting meaning into what are otherwise limited, both in time and space, experiences. 

When lanky and awkward pre-teens do an aliya, chant Torah and Haftara on a Shabbat to mark the experience of Bar or Bat Mitzvah amidst a larger Jewish community, not just their invited guests, they link themselves at once to their own local community, every other Jewish community around the world, not only that Shabbat, but for every Shabbat beforehand for countless generations and hopfully for countless to come.  It is a failure of the non-Orthodox institutions, leadership and lay community for creating a reality where our people have become so estranged and thereby disinterested that Hebrew matches to any other foreign language they don't know.  And yet, even so, there is deep meaning and significance, both practical and spiritual, from knowing that a young person might have the skills to navigate and lead any Jewish community in prayer any where, any time.  It is significant for the Bar Mitzvah boy and it is significant for the comuninity - not just his invited guests, but the Jewish community as a whole. And that is something the "bus ride" just can't do. 
When the wedding couple has witnesses sign a Ketubah, stands under a chuppah,  sanctifies themselves to each other with the words intoned over the generations, sips wine after 7 blessings, then even if each of those components is made fitting for them individually, they join together in a way that links them in a moment that mimics nothing less than the world's Divine creation. Not much else can get you that, even with a mazal tov and HaMotzi.

I'm not saying we can't have customization and personalization.  We can, and we should.  They enable us to acknowledge who we are and where we are in our own lives in an important way.  But to do so while whitewashing partially or entirely the "Jewish" expressions of these moments is to truly travel upon the turbulent sea with no compass nor anchor. At its heart, Judaism may be personal, but it is NOT private.  Part of the enduring profundity and beauty of Judaism is its mandate of connecting to that which is outside of ourselves: our families, our communities, our world and the Divine.  The true "Revolution" of the denominations that take modernity into account has always been and continues to be when they make Judaism, its teachings, and practices more meaningful, more personal, more inclusive, and more relevant through embracing and lifting up those core values, not diluting or disolving them in part or entirely.*** 

---

*http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/nyregion/new-yorks-jewish-population-is-growing-again.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
**http://www.thejewishweek.com/editorial-opinion/gary-rosenblatt/urj-overhauling-barbat-mitzvah
***As an example, Rabbi Dr. Rachel Adler did this with her cutting edge work around Brit Ahavah, and her son and daughter-in-law Rabbis Amitai and Julie Pelc-Adler have updated her work in a notably compelling, inclusive and intergity-filled wedding ceremony.

On Front Yards, Sink Holes, and Resilience

As a family with 2 kids ages 3 and 5, we are lucky to have a large front yard.  It is a great place for our kids and neighbors to run, jump, play, whatever.  The only problem is, our front yard has a minor sink hole.  Not a huge one, but one significant enough to create a 4-6 inch drop spanning the length of our yard and about a foot wide.  This large "divet" in the terrain initially proved challenging for my children  and their friends when they played in the front.  It made soccer games unfair, as the team protecting the goal that sits behind the sink hole had an unfair advantage given the bunker that protects it from infiltration, in addition to its goalie.  And it made running from first to second base of the makeshift t-ball field we set up notably treacherous as inevitably the runner had to leap across the hole twice to avoid falling in it.  You get the idea.  As a result, this sink hole has been filled with pebbles, dirt, and re-sodded numerous times, in attempts to create a level playing surface for our family's so-called "athletic" endevours.   But despite all efforts, the sink hole always returns in some form - maybe a little further South or a little more North - but it always comes back!


Our front yard really is a metaphor for life and how we handle the "sink holes" - the obstacles that challenge us along our own life's path.  The way I see it, there are 3 choices. 

1. Fill in the sink holes. 

Whatever the obstacle is, try to make it go away.  Say what needs to be said, do what needs to be done to create an even, level playing field. When another sink hole appears, repeat the process.  The problem with this method is that, just like in my front yard, sink holes always return in one form or another, regardless of how many times we try to even our path. This response assures a life lived on the defense, always waiting for the next hole to appear, always filling in and patching just to get by.

   2.    Step away from the sink holes. 

Knowing that it is just going to reappear, why not abandon the sink hole-ridden surface and find a different path entirely?  Who needs obstacles anyways?  My kids could just move their sporting events to our backyard.  It's flat back there and completely sheltered with its fenced and wooded perimeter.  The problem is, abandoning a challenging path for an easier one often comes with significant drawbacks.  The simpler route may not have the same benefits as the rougher road.  In the case of my backyard, because it is so private, it loses ease and accessiblity to the neighborhood kids' participation in these games.  So although my kids might be able to play their games on a flat surface, the "team" sports will have to become one-on-one games between my son and my daughter, which  (given my kids' age and skill differential) will undoubtedly make the games quicker and less interesting, or much less spontaneous.

  3. Figure out a way to play despite of (or even with) the sink hole.

Accepting that the path is challenging yet valuable, figure out a way to work with the sink hole's presence.  Is there a way to look at the obstacle instead as an opportunity?  "Prepare the child for the path, not the path for the child." This notion can serve as important advice for each and all of us, children and adults alike.  Playing fields aren't ever perfect.  Sink holes, fallen trees, and inclimate weather prove no different than any of the obstacles and challenges that will confront us wherever we go, whatever we do.  Comprising ourselves and our goals to assure a simpler path may, at first, seem to make things easier, but in the end, it assures stagnation, if not, diminishment, not only of the personal growth that comes from traversing a challenging road, but of who we are meant to be. 


So we decided to keep our sports in the front yard. Sure, sometimes the soccer games aren't so balanced and t-ball runners become a little more guarded on their first-to-second base dash, but in the process, the kids have learned agility, balance, not to mention determination and resilience.  Plus, if you kick the ball into the sink hole at a certain spot from the side, it jets the ball into the goal at an angle that no goalie has been able to stop!

On Idolatry and Metonymy: Parts of a Whole*

As the daughter of an English teacher, I find myself drawn to linguistic devices; you know, metaphor, simile, alliteration and allegory, onomatopoeia and parallelism – so many clever structures and techniques for expressing ourselves and our ideas in ways that go beyond the basic: "subject + verb = sentence" equation.  As such, let's start out with a literary device that we use all the time in common parlance but for which you likely don't know the name.

The Metonymy.  Ever heard of it? A metonymy is when “a characteristic or important part is used to stand for its corresponding whole.”

Here’s an example:

"Ouch - there goes my back!"  That phrase does not mean that the speaker’s entire back literally went away, but rather "back" there refers to the pain the person feels in their back. 

Or a famous one:

The pen is mightier than the sword.  Which, of course, isn’t about a duel with one person brandishing a Bic and the other a samurai weapon, but rather that writing is more powerful than warfare.

The metonymy is a great device that, generally speaking, adds flair and interest to any message.  But only when the listener understands that the part is being used to describe a greater whole.  If the part is confused with the actual whole, a whole different problem arises, and the metonymy can become quite treacherous. And it just so happens that there is one major Jewish "no-no" that proves a great example of this device and the danger it can pose.

So, hold that thought and see if you can answer this question:

According to Jewish tradition, what is the greatest sin a person can commit?

The answer is idolatry**. Not murder, not abuse, or any other offense – but idolatry. 

And why does idolatry trump the other offenses?  Not because those others aren’t bad, but because idolatry is the gateway to all those other offenses, as its practice can take someone along a path removed from morality and ethical behavior, leading them to more easily turn against God and against humanity in any number of ways. 

In its traditional sense, idolatry refers to the worshipping of other gods.  We know this from Torah, which spends a pretty significant amount of time trying to teach our ancestors about how problematic worshipping another god is; after all, the injunction against it ranks at the top of our most famous top ten list, detailed in the top two: "I am Adonai your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage: you shall have no other gods besides me.   You shall not make for yourself a sculpted image, or any likeness of what is in the heavens above or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth.  You shall not bow down to or serve them."

But for the average Jew today, it doesn’t seem that hard to avoid the practice of idolatry.  Generally speaking, we don’t see an enormous amount of people in our Jewish community who are literally worshipping other gods on the side.  Yet, idolatry continues to be a modern and relevant threat, not only to our Jewish community today, but to our overall world as well.  And that is because the practice of idolatry isn’t just about worshipping or even sculpting images of other gods.  Idolatry is actually an enacted metonymy!

Think about the most famous idolatry story in Torah: the Golden Calf.  When our ancestors constructed it, they weren’t building an image of some other ancient near-eastern bovine divinity; they were actually making an image of what they felt they needed our God to look like.  From the time they left Egypt, the ancient Israelites’ visually saw the presence of God at all times: whether in the form of a cloud or the form of fire, guiding them as they went.  When Moses ascended Mt. Sinai for 40 days to receive the law, all of their visual connection to God disappeared.  Their complete dependence on the necessity of seeing God led them to grow insecure. To satiate their perceived need for “seeing” the Divine, they built a visible image of God, in an attempt to sum up all that God was in one finite expression.  Afterall, there’s nothing really that offensive about a gold cow.  What is sinful is that their construction and worship of it messaged that God could be summed up in one image. They made the part the whole – enacting a metonymy. 

The Talmud and its commentators repeatedly lift up examples of our ancestors’ noting the majesty of the sun, moon, and stars, and in seeking to honor God’s creation, actually bowing and praying to these celestial beings themselves.  It isn't that they didn’t believe in God, they simply became confused between the part and the Whole.  (See Hilchot Avodah Zarah 1:1-2 for example.) Now we might ask, what’s so wrong with that – admiring that which God has created?  Think of it this way: it is a matter of faith to pray the words: Blessed are you Adonai our God, Creator of the sun, moon and stars. It is a matter of idolatry to pray the words: Blessed are you Sun, Moon, and Stars for being created.

And so idolatry isn’t solely about worshipping another god or even about worshipping something that is harmful or evil.  It is about distorting the importance of our goals and values, assigning them Ultimate meaning.  And why is that so problematic? Because it turns our goals into gods - a real problem.

Think of anything we value or strive for:  financial and professional success, physical fitness, love, fulfillment.  These things in and of themselves are not problematic, and are generally desirable pursuits, Jewish pursuits no less.  In fact, there are myriad teachings that urge us to strive for such aims.  What we must understand is that being Jewish demands we see those aims not as a final goal, but rather as a means by which each of us can enact God’s presence in the world. 

If we seek to acquire as much money as possible because we see it as a way to support our communities, those in need, and as a source of real tikun – repair for our world, that is one thing.  If seek to acquire money because we view money as the end-line goal, that is something entirely different.

If we seek out good health as a way improving our physical condition so that we might live longer, be better, and do more in our families, our community and our world, that is one thing.  If we seek out so called good health to meet the needs of our own vanities, then that is something else.

On one level, when the part is a means to the whole, we will likely find our needs met and find ourselves feeling fulfilled as we journey along our path. But when the part is made into the whole, we likely find ourselves experiencing just the opposite: feeling empty with our needs unmet, trapped in an unending cycle of self-absorption, obscuring our perspective on what is really important. 

And on a deeper, spiritual level, when we see the part as a means to the whole, it is much more likely that we will find ourselves on a path where our Divine purpose can be fulfilled and an imbued holiness made manifest in our lives and in our world.  But when the part is made into the whole, we actually deny our Divine potential and negate the holiness we are all charged to bring – a most dangerous form of idolatry.

The truth is, any number of pursuits have the potential to lead us down paths of fulfillment or distraction, wholeness or fragmentation: all depending on the values with which we choose to anchor ourselves and the Purpose we seek to achieve. 

May we be among those who are strong enough to see that the only end-all-be-all, the only whole for which we should strive is that of the Shalom that our tradition envisions will come when each of us fulfills our unique and Divine purpose in making God’s presence manifest in each and every part of our world.

And that is no metonymy – no literary device at all. 

*Much credit to my teacher and friend Rabbi David Stern for introducing me to this concept in a sermon a few years back!

**Note - this is not unanimously agreed upon by the commentators.  Some assert violating Shabbat is worse than idolatry, among other opinions as well.

I Told Myself I Would Never Say That! or Parenting Confessions and the Prophet Malachi

A Parenting Confession: I have dabbled in overprotectiveness,  irrationality, and dictatorship of and over my children. These are just a few of the "lesser" qualities for which I gave my mother a very hard time when I was the child.  In fact, I find myself regularly doing and saying things* to my kids that I vividly recall swearing to myself that I would NEVER EVER do/say to my children when I became a parent.   

In keeping with the prime purpose of parenting (the dictionary defines it as “the methods, techniques, etc., used or required in the rearing of children”), I think many of us often see it as a future-focused sort of opportunity -  to follow in our own parents’ footsteps in passing on positive qualities and at the same time, improving upon the short-comings of our own parents as another generation of a family unfolds. 

But perhaps parenting has an additional purpose that moves us in the opposite direction: empathy for and sometimes forgiveness of our own parents. I now have a greater understanding of how my mother must have been feeling in any number of situations when she was raising me.  I see how hard it is to inculcate patience and perspective when losing my temper proves so much more instinctual; I know the deep fear that sets in when one of my children does anything that I just “know” will place him/her in imminent danger; I understand how sometimes what seems to be the best choice in a given moment really only demonstrates a complete lack of rationality; I even value the right to throw in the “Because I told you so” card from time to time because sometimes it is just about the only thing I can think of.  And I see already, as I demonstrate these same "offenses" against my children, they are saying to themselves: “I will NEVER EVER do/say that to my kids when I am a parent!”

In a powerful passage from the second collection of books in the Hebrew Bible called Neviim/Prophets, the prophet Malachi prophesies the conditions that will indicate the fulfillment of God's vision for a perfect world (put more traditionally, the conditions that will immediately precede the Messiah's coming): that the hearts of parents will turn to their children and the hearts of children will turn to their parents. (3:24)  I can't imagine that Malachi was referring to only two generations relating to each other, but rather, that such a condition might more likely include three (and if one is truly lucky, four generations.)  If so, it serves as a powerful antidote to the traditional notion that the sins of the parents essentially carry to their children and even grandchildren to the third or fourth generation. (see Exodus 34:7)  Understanding our own role as parents as an opportunity to not only to impact the lives of our own children but to transform negative feelings of the past toward our own parents into positive ones might serve as profound treatment for the very real world condition of grudge holding that so many people hold against their own parents, even when they are no longer children themselves. 

Perhaps if those of us who are blessed to become parents are able to turn our hearts not only toward our own children but also to our own parents at once, we really will create a chain of parents and children, connecting  past, present, and future throughout the continuum of generations, and indeed, such a reality might truly stand as a measure for when our world might be fully imbued with wholeness and love.

*I refer here to a cadre of general parenting habits/choices within a range of normative parenting -- this is in no way meant to address patterns of sickness and/or abuse that some people may experience or perpetuate.  If you are seeking resources on breaking the chain of violence or abuse, please click here for some helpful resources.